There's No Place Like Home
by blueyellowgreen
Summary: A lot of different moments - varying characters, varying times, varying subject matter; most of them were inspired by different songs.
1. That Night

It wasn't that he thought his problems were less important than hers; but he had to admit, that on the scale of fucked up, hers took the cake ten times over. Hers were the kind of problems that he thought would take years to fully recover from, if she ever could, the kind of problems that he could listen to her talk about and understand her fury and her sorrow and sometimes, even wonder why she wasn't angrier. He justified not talking about his troubles with her by telling himself that she had enough to worry about, and besides, they'd sound trivial compared to what she'd been through this year.

He justified a lot of things in his life. He justified Natalie's drug use with what she'd been going through; he justified his own drug use with _it's not like I'm smoking crack,_ and then, later,_ it's not like I do what Nat does_; he justified staying with Natalie by hoping she would get better.

At least that, he knew, was true - she was getting better. He didn't tell her that his heart had nearly leapt out of his chest when he saw her arrive at the dance last week, nor did he tell her he'd waited in front of the school for two hours earlier while he waited to see if she would eventually come. He didn't tell her that his hands had been shaking slightly when they danced, and he was pretty sure she hadn't noticed.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he didn't tell her much of anything. He always listened, but never wanted to burden her on top of everything she had to deal with already.

He didn't tell her, and probably never would, that he'd arrived home that night after the dance to his father passed out on the couch in front of the pale light of a television screen, the room reeking of alcohol, and his mother in her bedroom, the door shut and locked, as was her way of dealing with everything that she didn't like to think about.

He'd knocked.

"Go away," A voice floated through the door. He winced at the sudden sound of his mother's tiny voice. When he was younger, he'd remembered her voice being much louder, but over the years it seemed to have shrunk to almost nothing.

"Mom? It's me."

"Henry?"

"Yeah." _Who else?_

"How was the dance?"

"It was nice." He said to the door. He hated this. He talked to her through a door almost as often as he talked to her face to face.

"Good. It's late; tell me all about it in the morning."

"Yeah, but mom?"

He waited at the door but no further response came, and it remained closed. He looked back down the hall to where he could still see the flickering light from the television, then back at the closed door, and knocked again.

"Go away." His mom said again.

He'd thought about telling Natalie, he had. He'd wanted to. But then his phone rang later that night.

"Henry?" Her voice had been unsteady, and he immediately became concerned.

"Natalie? What's going on?"

"My mom's gone."

_"So is mine,"_ he felt like saying, felt like _shouting_, but instead said, "It'll be okay, Nat."


	2. Happy Birthday

When Natalie was eleven, her father gave her a book for her birthday. It was a nature book, hardcover, thick with hundreds of pages. On each page there was a vivid photograph of a different far away animal or place, the amount of color and detail striking, sometimes nearly breathtaking.

She hadn't looked at it much when she'd gotten it, too busy or disinterested, or perhaps both. But when she took to being alone in her room over the next couple of years, she would look at the photographs on each glossy page and take care not to get any fingerprints on them. Under each photo there was a fact about what was pictured. She loved those facts, contained so unerringly in little white text.

They never lied to her. She could take comfort in this exactness the same way that she took comfort in knowing that if she played a key on the piano, it would sound exactly the same the next day. Once she got older, however, she put the book on her shelf, not taking it down again.

She all but forgot about it until her father called up to her bedroom the summer after her junior year, asking if she was ready to go.

"Ready to go where?" She yelled back.

Natalie could hear him sigh from all the way down the stairs.

"It's your mom's birthday. You promised you would go see her. You didn't forget, did you?"

_Shit_.

"No, of course not!" She called back down, and scanned her room for something that could pass as a gift. Spotting the book, she seized it and shoved it into her backpack before heading down the stairs.

He drove her there in silence even though she'd insisted several times that she could drive herself. She knew he probably was just hoping to catch a glimpse of Diana, but didn't have the heart to tell him that he was probably hoping in vain.

"I'll pick you up in two hours." He said when they arrived.

"_Two _hours?"

"She's your mother, Nat."

"You don't see your mother except for a half hour on holidays. And only major ones."

"Two hours." He repeated.

"I have plans with Henry."

"Two hours."

"Can you stop saying that?"

"_Two hours,_ Natalie."

"Okay! Jesus!"

She gave an exaggerated sigh and slammed the car door, dreading going into the house. She'd always hated her grandparents' house when she was a kid. Everything was so orderly and pristine, she was always afraid to touch anything. She hated it even more knowing that her mother was in there now, probably waiting with that stupid smile on her face.

What the hell did she have to smile about? Or, Natalie thought, her mother might have lots to smile about. She'd packed up and left behind everything that was weighing her down, including her own daughter.

It was that very smile that greeted Natalie, beaming right in her face as Diana opened the door.

"Hi, mom." She said reluctantly. "Happy birthday."

Just saying the words made her feel like vomiting. Her mother had ruined how many of her birthdays? Too many, she thought ruefully as she was shown to a seat in the living room. Diana sat opposite her, still smiling that foolish smile.

"You shouldn't smile like that." Natalie said calculatingly. "People might think you're crazy."

The smile fell off Diana's face immediately, and for a moment Natalie felt a rush. It was the kind of rush, she came to realize, that came from a little bit of reprisal. As much as she wanted to be, though, she wasn't cut out to be malicious. Her mother looked like she didn't know what to do with herself, like all her thoughts of how the day was going to go were slipping away, and guilt began to eat away quickly at Natalie. She fumbled with her backpack and held out the book.

"Happy birthday." She said again, lamely. "I –" She cleared her throat. This was a stupid gift_._ "I read it a lot. When you were, you know."

Diana met her daughter's stare unwaveringly, which was disconcerting to Natalie. She looked at the floor and followed the pattern on the rug with her eyes.

"When I was what?" Diana asked.

"You can't be serious." Natalie blurted before thinking about it.

"No, I guess I know." Diana made some sort of hand motion and Natalie, staring at the floor, nodded. She didn't know what Diana meant, but she just didn't want to look.

She moved her gaze from the rug to the glass jar, filled with seashells, in the center of the coffee table. Its top was a glass ball that made the room look upside down, and to herself Natalie appreciated the appropriateness of the image in that reflection. Living in a world like that was beautiful in its own way, she supposed; beautiful to live upside down, until you ran out of oxygen in your brain and died.

Those types of thoughts, she knew, were the type that always got Dan concerned. It amused her, sometimes, how he took everything she said so seriously. Lately he'd been asking her a lot – too much, really – what her thoughts were. The last time he'd asked, he'd been driving her to the mall to get some new clothes for the summer and asked her what her plans were.

"On a grand scale? To die someday," she said dryly, and her father gave her a sideways look.

"You don't have to be such a cynic, Natalie." He said sternly.

"And you don't have to ask me all these questions." She retorted.

"I care." He said, and though she knew he did, she wondered if he cared more now because he could no longer care for her mother.

Thinking those thoughts, she nearly forgot that she was sitting in her grandparents' living room until Diana spoke again.

"Thank you for the book."

Natalie looked up, surprised at the sincerity. "You're welcome." She said, the response automatic. She felt suddenly like she had to explain. "It's, like, animals and stuff."

"It's nice."

"I guess."

An awkward silence fell. They never had much to talk about to begin with, why should it be any different now? The only sound was the sound of Diana turning the shiny pages of the book.

"Would you look at this one?" Diana exclaimed suddenly, holding the book up so that she could see. In spite of herself, Natalie smiled a little. It was one of her favorite pictures, one of the few that she remembered. It showed a couple of brightly colored parrots, and she had delighted in turning the page suddenly to find the flurry of color.

"Isn't it incredible how the smallest things can give you joy?" Diana asked, but Natalie was sure she didn't want an answer.


	3. Coping

Thank you for the lovely reviews :) I especially appreciate the constructive criticism, it's nice to hear feedback. That being said, something just didn't seem quite right about this one to me and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. But I thought it had some good bits now and then so I'm posting it anyway, haha.

* * *

Dan thought she didn't love the baby. He didn't say so, but she could see it in his eyes. He certainly made it clear that he did. He would often stroke Natalie's small cheek with the back of his hand and kiss her forehead so tenderly that it almost seemed like he was afraid to break her.

They sat in the living room one night a few months after the baby had been born, and Dan bounced her on his knee; she gurgled happily.

Diana watched with as much interest as if it had been a stranger's baby. She did love Natalie. It just didn't feel like she was _hers_, it felt like she was just Dan's.

It was his idea to have another child. He had picked out the name, Natalie, a name which Diana neither liked nor disliked, and therefore let him pick it without much discussion. The baby even had his eyes.

This wasn't her child.

Her child, her perfect child, was buried in the ground, alone – no_, no, _she thought, she couldn't think about that.

"Di?" Dan asked timidly. "Would you like to hold her?"

She looked at him, with his concerned eyes and hopeful smile, and wordlessly held out her arms. His grin spread to a full-out beam and he gently placed Natalie into her arms, sitting back into his chair after she'd been safely deposited.

Diana didn't feel that connection that she knew she should have. She knew that rationally, this was her child, this little calm baby with Dan's eyes. But it just wasn't right. Nothing about this baby was right. Dan watched her, as if waiting for a reaction, and Diana turned away on the couch, still carefully holding the baby.

With this child in her arms, she could feel the even breaths, the warmth from the baby's skin; she could close her eyes and this could be like her son. She remembered holding him just like this, remembered feeling like crying tears of joy, a mixture of pride and happiness. She remembered placing a finger into his tiny hand, and the sound of his cries. He had been her entire world. Her heart.

"Diana!" Dan said sharply, and her eyes snapped open, ending her daydream. He shot out of his chair, crossing the room quickly and taking the now squirming and crying Natalie from her. She realized she had very nearly dropped the baby on the floor, and looked at her empty hands while Dan walked down the hall to put Natalie in her crib, the thin cries fading as he got further away.

He spent a few minutes in Natalie's room. She knew he'd be telling her that everything was alright, fussing over her like a doting parent should. She didn't think she'd be able to do the same.

Dan walked back down the hall, sitting next to Diana on the couch.

He took her hand; it felt foreign to her. They had lived in their own separate worlds, occupying the same space, but her world stood frozen while his moved forward. She was being eaten alive while he was somehow above it all. He couldn't understand how she couldn't move on with life and she couldn't understand how he could.

"Everything will be alright," he said quietly.

No, it wouldn't.

She extracted her hand from his, placing it in her own lap. "You're heartless." She said, and while she said it she realized how true she thought it was.

"Why?" He asked, sounding hurt. Not offended, no, never offended. She wished he'd just get angry, throw something, and show that he was still suffering. If he even was.

"You replaced our son." She said accusingly, and felt like she could hardly breathe.

She didn't like to think about this. In her mind, when things got too painful, she convinced herself that Gabriel was just taking a nap, somewhere out of sight. If she thought about it for long enough, she could believe it. That's where she wanted to be - real or not, in a world where her son could still laugh, could still cry, could still _breathe._

"Natalie is as much our daughter as…he was our son." Dan said evenly.

"Yes," Diana agreed, just to placate him, and so that her waking dream this time wouldn't be interrupted with his arguments. "They're equal."

"But Natalie needs you. She needs a mother."

She noticed the missing link in the comparison – _Gabe doesn't_ – but didn't let it affect her. She was molding reality to fit the way she wanted it, and some part of her knew that the more she did this, the more she was losing her grip to be able to distinguish between fact and fiction. She didn't care. This was the only way she could cope. It didn't make her happy, but made it possible for her to survive.

"I'm going to go for a walk!" She announced suddenly.

"Okay." Dan said confusedly, but grabbed her wrist before she could exit the room. "Di?"

She waited. He put a hand on her cheek and she let him, but didn't return the gesture in any way.

"We'll get through this. I know it's hard – but we'll get through it. You and me and Natalie."

"And Gabe." She said chirpily; he looked baffled at her sudden change in mood, but nodded.

"In our hearts, yes." Dan said, clearly struggling to be accommodating. She ignored him; she just wanted to sink back into the world she had created and never come up for air. He watched her, his eyes so concerned and weak and so strong all at once, and she didn't want that. She wanted him to show his wounds - wanted to be comforted by his pain, not by his calmness.

She hesitated at the door, but Dan was already walking back down the hall, and she heard him sigh, so quietly, but it was enough to tide her over. A crack in the armor.

Dan returned to Natalie's room. She was sleeping soundly, and he gently pushed some of her wispy hair away from her forehead and watched her stir in her sleep, her small hands balled into fists.

He wondered about Natalie; would she grow up to be happy? Ten years down the line, twenty? With everything he had in him, that was what he wanted for her. _That_, he thought, was all he would ever want for her – for all three of them. Happiness.


	4. Small Steps

He had to remind himself to take small steps.

Thirteen steps down the hall.

Ten steps down the stairs.

Four steps to the door of the kitchen.

Six more steps from the doorway to the counter.

Thirty-three steps that he took every day, had always taken every day, and yet he had never noticed how each one was like a journey in itself. He had never noticed how the countertop caught the light from the window, or how the curtains didn't quite block the light, or how there were little specks on the outside of the window that were also caught in the sun. He had just never thought about it.

He had never thought about a lot of things, like how Diana's loud morning routine was actually quite soothing in its own way. He missed that. He hadn't heard from her since she packed a suitcase and left, six days earlier; six days with a piece of him just missing. His only news of her was through Natalie. He lost track of time much more easily now, counting only minute to minute with no reference point to speak of, and staring at all the things he had never noticed.

There was no bustling about like there was when Diana was around. There were no shouted conversations, no waiting breakfasts, no quick send offs every morning. There was an overwhelming silence, and each minute, which he now separated out like he did his steps, he was reminded of that. Engrossed in the early morning that he had hardly known existed prior to Diana's absence, he was surprised to hear the sound of Natalie's feet climbing reluctantly down the stairs. Surely it couldn't be time for her to leave for school already.

She came into the kitchen and crossed the room purposefully. For the most part, she ignored him, looking around, pulling on her shoes, grabbing her books off of the counter and shoving them into her backpack. "What?" She asked shortly, finally looking at him.

"Hm?"

"You're like, _staring_ at me."

"You're dressed nicely." It was true, he wanted to know why, but didn't dare ask for fear of distancing her. They had been doing so much better recently, and he felt he was always walking on thin ice when it came to Natalie.

"Yeah, okay. Um…" she regarded his pajamas with her serious eyes; she'd always had that serious look in them, even when she was young. She laughed suddenly, unexpectedly. "I was going to return the compliment, but I don't think I can," she said, and he chuckled a little too.

He didn't know when he'd started counting everything, but it felt like it was the only thing that kept him sane. Two times in six days, he and Natalie had laughed together. He couldn't remember the last time before that.

"I probably won't be home after school. Henry's."

"Why don't you bring him here?" It would be nice to have some noise in the house, he thought to himself, and he hadn't seen much of either Henry or even Natalie lately, except for brief moments at a time.

She looked at him skeptically and that look reminded him of Diana. Natalie had Diana's unbending spirit, but whereas in Diana it was something out of control and whimsical, in Natalie it was cold and focused. But it was one and the same. Natalie put her backpack on, still staring him down. "You want me to bring Henry over here?"

"Why not?"

"Because now that you're not, like, distracted, you've just been...way stricter."

He winced at the bluntness of her statement, but realized he shouldn't have been surprised. Natalie wasn't one to mince words - not now, not ever.

"Invite him to dinner, Natalie." He said firmly, and she rolled her eyes, heading out the door, but all in all it felt like a successful morning. Small steps, he reminded himself, small steps.

* * *

Natalie had asked Henry to dinner right after school, and he'd given her a sideways look. "Uh, why?" He asked, and then had quickly corrected himself. "I mean, not that I don't want to go, but you've actually never asked me over since the last time –"

"I know. The stupid dinner wasn't my idea. It was my dad's."

"Oh." Henry had sounded a little bit disappointed, almost like he had wanted it to be her idea, but the next second he seemed to be over it. "Yeah, sure."

He dropped her off at her house and told her that he'd be back in a few minutes, after he got changed. She argued that what he wore to school was fine, but he had insisted that he wanted to make a good impression. _Like anyone here cares_, she thought to herself, but could never bring herself to ruin Henry's enthusiasm.

So as afternoon turned to evening, Natalie sat in the kitchen, alone, a book open on the table in front of her. Physics. She hated it, but her perfectionist nature wouldn't let her put it to the side - she studied until she was sure she would get perfect scores. This time, however, she wasn't really looking at it.

She was taking in the silence.

It was like a brief moment that seemed to stretch on forever, a serene but ominous stillness before a storm. She had long since learned that silence was dangerous. In the Goodman household, it meant that something was wrong. It meant hushed voices and doctors' appointments and calls to family members. But not this time. It was a respite, in a way, that her mother was gone; a complete and utter relief that she had never before felt in her life. And the lightness was wonderful. As soon as it entered her mind, she felt a deep sadness; not only because she had thought it, but because it was so very true.

For this one time, she could enjoy the silence without having to worry. No matter what happened at this dinner, she would have this moment of silence, hidden where no one could ever ruin it. It was small, but it was just enough. That was all she needed for now: small steps.


	5. Diana

It was a boiling hot day. The kind of day that looked felt like hell, but looked beautiful from the inside of an air-conditioned room, which was where Dan was planning on spending his day if he could help it. He hated the heat, and wasn't particularly fond of the outdoors. He liked order, plans, and structure, and nature provided none of those - it was chaos, an orderly chaos, but chaos nonetheless.

He looked out into the parking lot of his dorm building, and an enthusiastically waving hand caught his eye. _Speaking of chaos_, he thought amusedly. It was attached to the slender arm belonging to a pretty auburn-haired young woman. _Diana_, he remembered her name was, she was in a couple of his classes and he'd talked to her here and there throughout last spring's semester. How the hell did she find out where he lived on campus when they'd just moved back in to the dorms a little more than a week ago?

She was saying something, he realized, and he reluctantly cracked his window open a little, feeling the heat cut through the air conditioning quickly.

"Dan!" She shouted, bouncing on her heels excitedly. "Let's go for a walk!"

He thought about just shutting the window and going back to his day, but she looked so happy and so excited and so…stunning. How could he pass this up?

"I'll be down in a minute." He called down to her. He got halfway out the door, then suddenly stopped and took a few steps back, checking his appearance briefly in the mirror before continuing out.

The heat outside hit him like a punch, but Diana's smile was so invigorating that it nearly didn't matter. They walked along the sidewalk, and Dan felt like his throat was closing in on him - not that he could think of anything to say, but it hardly mattered because Diana chattered on about everything. She jumped from one subject to another frenziedly as if she had not a care in the world except to tell him as much in the shortest amount of time she could. He hung on her every word, whether it was about her roommate or her childhood or the weather.

* * *

They had nearly reached the end of the campus when she suddenly cried out. "Oh!" She grabbed his arm excitedly, pointing to a fountain. "We could sit there. Let's sit there, Dan!"

She sat down before he could answer. Gingerly, he made his way over to the fountain, where the spray had already started to soak Diana's hair, flattening it against her head, but she didn't even seem to notice.

"It feels nice, doesn't it?" She asked, and he had to admit that it did, though she was getting a majority of the water. "We can move if you want." She added quickly. "I just like it here. I sit here all the time, it reminds me of rain."

What a strange thing to say, he thought, but everything about this was strange, in the most wonderful way possible. She was beautiful, yes, but it was more than that - she was unlike anyone he'd ever met before. She was captivating. Magnetic. He would have probably sat there next to her, at the edge of that fountain, even if it was spewing acid instead of water.

"Do you have air conditioning?" She asked suddenly. "I don't have air conditioning in my building."

"Uh – yes. In my room."

"Can we go there? I don't want to impose, but this _sun_ –" Diana held up a hand against the offending sunlight, squinting at him. Her eyes looked right through him, which was at once disquieting and exhilarating.

"Of course."

* * *

Without being invited, she sat delicately on the chair as soon as he'd opened the door to his room. Dan went over to the closet, rooting around for a towel to give her, wishing fervently that he'd at least put away some of the recently unpacked items. He seized one and crossed the room, but her voice stopped him.

"This was stupid."

"I don't think so –" he managed. "What I mean is, I had a nice time, Diana."

"Why did we even go outside?" She asked miserably. "I mean, look at me. I'm soaking wet. I'm a _mess_." She pressed a hand to the window, staring outside, and he faltered, confused and kneading the towel in his nervous hands.

"You look fine. Better than fine." He said quietly, and she blinked, turning around to look at him, a small smile just touching the edge of her lips.

"Do you really think so?"

"Absolutely."

Her smile spread; it was a striking smile. "You're full of shit." She said. At first he felt a moment of panic, like he'd said something wrong, but then she laughed and added: "I like that. I like _you_, Dan Goodman."


	6. Natalie's Room

"Natalie, pay attention to me please."

Natalie forced her tired gaze away from the window to meet her father's much more alert, much more suspicious stare.

"I said, where were you last night? I checked in at nearly midnight and you weren't in your room." He folded his arms.

Natalie weighed her options carefully. She could either tell him where she'd been, or she could lie to him about it and hope against hope that he never found out; neither option seemed particularly inviting.

Before she could speak, however, Diana breezed down the stairs, wearing a dress. Not just any dress, Natalie noted wryly, but a sundress that looked like something an overzealous sightseer would wear on vacation.

"Ready to go, Dan?" She asked happily, arranging the skirt, and Natalie rolled her eyes as Dan seemed to be fishing for words open-mouthed. She was beyond tired of this charade – of the "It's alright, Diana"s, and especially of the gentle "Let's go find you something else to wear" that she was sure was coming next.

"You're wearing a fucking summer dress." Natalie said loudly, ignoring the look her father shot her. "It's February, and – I honestly think that you may not know this, mom – but you're not a Hawaiian tourist."

"Language, Natalie." Dan said curtly, brushing by her. "Di, honey, you can't wear that. It's cold outside."

"Oh, I'll be fine. Gabe told me when he got back from basketball practice that it wasn't that cold –"

"Enough." Dan cut her off swiftly and suddenly, taking her by the elbow and leading her back toward their bedroom. Natalie watched them go up the stairs, and then flounced onto the couch, wondering what she had done in a prior life to deserve this kind of shit. Weren't parents supposed to be the normal ones? Weren't kids supposed to be the ones who gave the trouble? Natalie was upholding her end of that bargain, she thought sarcastically, but no one noticed.

No, that wasn't true. Henry noticed, Natalie corrected herself. Henry noticed more than he should. He noticed when she wore the same clothes to school two days in a row, when she looked more tired than usual, when she had a glazed look in her eyes.

"Are you okay, Nat?" He'd ask almost every day, and he'd beg her to tell him when she was going out so that, if nothing else, he could be there for her. She found the whole thing to be almost irritating – almost, but something in the way he never gave up made her hesitate to dismiss him so easily. He wasn't the one who she wanted to notice her behavior, but there was an odd reassurance in his unwavering attention.

"Go to your room." She heard her father say before she heard his clomping feet coming back down the stairs. "I just need to talk on the phone for a few minutes. Your mom and I will probably go to the doctor today, so you might need to have some leftovers for dinner."

Realizing the futility of arguing, Natalie slid off of the couch and made it halfway up the stairs before her obstinate nature took over. He should know that she wasn't in the wrong here. He should know that there were no leftovers in the fridge – it had been weeks since Diana had even acted like her daughter existed, let alone cooked a family meal. He should _know_ that Natalie hadn't been home until nearly four in the morning. And why didn't he? Was he deliberately ignorant, or was he just fucking stupid? Either way, it wasn't right. Anger flew quickly through her and she turned around to face him.

"You asked where I was last night." She said, careful to leave no emotion in her tone – measured. She considered what she wanted to say.

_I went out. I went to a club. I danced with complete strangers. I ignored six calls from Henry and he left me four voicemails, each one more desperate than the last. I drank more last night than you probably have in years. I got lost walking home before I called Henry to pick me up. (He did. He always does.) Mom didn't throw those pills away this time; I was the one who took them when you noticed were missing. _

_They make me forget everything I hate. But you know what it is to forget, dad, since you can forget even your own daughter._

She took a breath. "I fell asleep at Henry's. Sorry I didn't call."

"We'll talk about it later." Dan murmured, already distracted and looking in the phone book for some number or another. Natalie trudged the rest of the way to her room, sitting on the edge of the bed. She knew there would be no later. There never was. Her room looked foreign to her, like it was a remnant of someone else's childhood. The curtains hung primly, her books were all in order, and her clothes hung tidily in the closet. There was a blanket neatly folded at the foot of the bed, and she remembered Henry folding it uneasily, but carefully, when he had knocked it onto the floor before he left the night before. Almost automatically, she put her hand on the blanket and left it there, as if she could draw comfort from the loosely knit threads. It was strange, knowing that someone else had folded it. Someone cared about those tiny details of her life.

She took out her cell phone and dialed Henry's number before she could think about it. He picked up on the first ring.

"Natalie? Is everything okay?"

The amount of concern in his voice made her feel almost sick. Anything he could be feeling toward her – anger seemed to her to be the most logical emotion – and he was _worried_?

"Yeah. Everything's okay."

"Good." He said, and she could hear some sort of argument in the background; his parents, perhaps. There was the slamming of a door, then a silence that was as abrupt as it was unsettling.

"I just, uh…thank you for folding my blanket." She said hastily.

_Thank you for folding my blanket?_ What the hell was she _thinking_? She was tempted to just end the call, but residual guilt from the way she had been treating him lately kept her from hanging up.

"What?" Henry asked, confused.

"Never mind."

"What are you talking about?"

"I said never mind."

"I mean, fine but…are you…is everything really okay?"

He was asking her if she was on something. That was his first guess as to why she had called. The realization of it – of what she had become – brought tears suddenly and unexpectedly to her eyes, and she shook her head _no_ at the phone, knowing he couldn't see her.

"I'm fine, Henry. I'm sorry I called."

There was a silence, and then Henry spoke again, hesitantly. "Nat. I'd fold everything in your room ten times over if it would make you happy."

Natalie said goodbye, knowing that it wouldn't be long before the tears started to show in her voice.

"I love you." Henry said.

She knew, without even questioning it, that it was true; what she didn't know was why.


End file.
